Do Good for God

6 With what shall I come before the LORD

and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the LORD require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God. -Micah 6:6-8- (NIV)

What does God want you to do?

Have you ever pondered the question? Has your mind ever wondered about it? Have you ever had to search for such an answer?

Look at the prophecy of Micah.  He offers the believer insights into pleasing and honoring God.  We are dual citizens, living both on earth and prepared for heaven.  Our bodies dwell here, but our hearts desire heaven.

Micah's prophecy sheds light on social responsibility in combination with brotherly love.   It shows us how we can offer social justice and equity in the light of oppressive conditions.  We,as believers in Christ, owe the Lord a lifestyle dedicated and devoted to following His ways as well as His Word.  We need to follow His example and offer ourselves entirely over to Him in submission.  He is our King.  He is our Lord.  We need to see Him as the supreme authority over our lives.

Do good for God by doing some good.  Get in some good works.  Share a good word with someone. 

From Eden to Egypt- Day 23

Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”- Genesis 17:15-17(NKJV)

You have keep this in context.  God said what He would do through Abraham and Sarah in their old age, and then. .  . Okay, okay.  Let me say it another way.  God shared how He would bless the man and his wife with a child, even though they both were beyond the years of conception and . . . Maybe I just should say it a different way.  God informed Abraham that He would use Hs supernatural abilities to rid Sarah of her barren reproach, giving Abraham an heir of his own seed, his own blood, his own lineage.  Yeah, that's right about the place that the old man fell on his face.  In worship?  He was in laughter, creating images in our minds of him most probably nearing tears with an ache in his side to go with it.

Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old?

And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?

That's not the most reverent response to God known to man from the sound of it.  Abraham seems to take it a notch above a snicker with outright laughter if we take this at the surface.  Yet, let us not jump on Abraham so fast.  Genesis 18 complicates the matter even further when the Lord appears as three men approaching Abraham one day. 

Then they said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” So he said, “Here, in the tent.” And He said, “I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son.” (Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.)  Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?”- Genesis 18:9-12 (NKJV)

Just like her husband, Sarah laughed at the idea.  She, too, saw it as an impossibility for her and her husband to rear children at their advanced years of age.  No matter if it is the Almighty God Himself or these three men entertained by Abraham, the idea presented to both husband and wife seems comical and causes both to laugh.

Was it really a laugh? Was it truly laughter? Were they both the same type of laughter?

The same root word is used in our English translation for "laughter" and "laughed," making any distinction or differentiation between the two difficult.  You would think that both were similar if not the same.  Yet, Henry Morris points out in The Genesis Record that Abraham's laughter was "with joy and surprise... not a laugh of doubt." It is different from Sarah's laughter that warrants the rebuke of the Lord in Genesis 18:13.  Morris calls Sarah's laughter "cynical."  Dr. Morris surmises that "her faith needed to be strengthened."

Unlike the interaction with Abraham alone, the theophany in Genesis 18 leads to the Lord questioning Sarah's laughter.  Despite Sarah's denial, the Lord breaks through all of the mess and addresses the child of promise issue again, repeating the promise before both Abraham and Sarah.  Ultimately, He poses the deepest question that could be asked of any believer- whether they need their faith strengthened or not: Is anything too hard for the Lord?

From Eden to Egypt- Day 9

Now the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.

- Genesis 3:20 (NASB)

She was called Eve.  She was the "mother of all the living." I find it interesting that the man "named" his wife

 according to the New International Version.  This occurs in chapter 3, but let us look at chapter 2 for a moment.

And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. - Genesis 2:23 (KJV)

He called her "Woman" before he called her "Eve." He identified with her being a part of him before he recognized her as being the "mother of all the living." He saw her as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh "because she was taken out of Man."  He saw them as interconnected beyond what they're coming together would produce.

 
That's the beauty of male-female relationships.  There's so much that we see as differences between us.  Yet, God saw fit to take from the man to make the woman.  He created them both.  He utilized their union to symbolize Christ's union with the body of believers.  He sanctified and ordained the union of man and woman long before municipalities authorized and legalized marriages.  Yes, we were made for each other because He made us so and He saw that it was good.
Let us not neglect the blessed union that God has provided for us.  Let every marriage be seen as God's sacred unification of man and woman as one flesh.  We should love one another, male and female, husband and wife, as gifts from the Most High to us.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. - Genesis 2:25 (KJV)

*From Eden to Egypt is a series for Life Path Ministries by Rev. Bruce Jackson that chronicles a daily study and reading of the Book of Genesis and The Genesis Record by Henry M. Morris.